Breastfeeding biscuits recipe

Breastfeeding bicuits recipe

When I had Lacey I struggled breastfeeding her. Boys, you might like to grab a beer and watch some sport on TV, this topic is about to get girly. I always imagined breastfeeding to be easy, you know pop them on and away they feed. Happily. It wasn’t for me though. I tried and tried, because it was something I so badly wanted to do… and I even did a half-day class when Lacey was one week old just to try to nail it. We never ‘nailed it’ but I did manage to breastfeed for 14 months {as well as supplement feed formula too}.

I tried everything in those early months. I tried a drug to boost my supply, I talked to people from the Australian Breastfeeding Association, I did lots of skin-on-skin time, drank lots of water, everything the books said… including eating the breastfeeding biscuits. Unfortunately this time has been no walk in the park either, sadly. More on that another day.

Don’t be scared into thinking that they’re made from breastmilk. Ain’t nobody got enough milk for that, well not me at least! But they’re meant to help increase your supply or at least maintain it. I don’t know if any of that is proven, but they are yummy. I made them for my little sister not long after my niece was born and express posted them down. Of course, I kept some for myself. As you do.

If you have a friend who has just given birth, make them these. You’ll get a friend of the year award for sure.

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 tbs water
1 tbs flaxseed meal
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup plain flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cups of rolled oats
3/4 cup chocolate chips
1-2 tbs of brewers yeast {or a 5g sachet is good!}

Method

♥ Preheat the oven to 180C and prepare a baking tray by lining it with baking paper.
♥ Mix together the flaxseed meal with the water. Set aside for 3 minutes.
♥ Cream the butter and the sugar with electric beaters. Add the egg, beat in.
♥ Stir in the flaxseed/water mix, and the vanilla. Beat until blended.
♥ Sift together the dry ingredients, including the oats and chocolate chips. Stir the dry ingredients into the butter mix until well combined.
♥ Make into balls and place onto the baking tray. You can press them down with the back of a spoon, or leave them as balls {like I do}.
♥ Bake for 8-12 minutes, or until golden brown. Eat and enjoy, guilt-free of course.

Are you a mama? Did you breastfeed? Did you find it as easy as it looks, or a little harder like me?

YELLOW-BREAK

Ingredients

Method

44 thoughts on “Breastfeeding biscuits recipe”

  1. I have a son (who will turn two tomorrow!). I hated breastfeeding. I wanted to do it, but I hated it. He had a hard time grabbing on, it hurt a lot, and aaaaallllll the late nights and the no sleep. On top of that he didn’t really have the patience for the milk, and when he was three months old, breastfeeding was such a nightmare, that I started pumping breastmilk, and supplemented with formula. And then I could sleep through a whole night, cause my boyfriend would do the feeding. So no – absolutely not easy! Plus the pressure from the society to breastfeed doesn’t make it easy to make the decision to stop.

  2. when my son was born he was a ‘sucker’ to the max. I found breastfeeding in the hsopital quite hard and sore and it wasn’t until the nurse came to my home and taught me the ‘football’ hold that everything fell into place. It isn’t the easiest thing at all and you can only do what you can do.

  3. I’m on my 3rd baby and am almost feeding him completely myself. We top him up with 125ml at night (4ozs). I also use Domperidone to boost my supply. It’s not as easy as it should be but am persevering as I want to do it so much! This baby is having the most mummy milk. The other 2 were having more bottles. So I am really pleased with myself! ;D

  4. My boy is four weeks old and it has been no picnic! I had an inverted nipple before he was born, and now said nipple is totally carved up and kills every time he attaches. Everyone keeps saying it gets better and gosh I hope they’re right. What’s most annoying is when they give you a time frame and you pass it, “oh by next week you’ll be a pro…” Yeah, still waiting. At least I don’t have to worry about supply as I am absolutely swimming in the stuff! I hope it’s good for the skin!

  5. These sound yummy, great new mama gift idea. And no my feeding journeys haven’t been easy either. Multiple lactation consultant visits, many phone calls to the ABA, lots of friends and family advice and hours and hours of tears and anxiety later (both me and babies) I ended up stopping after a few months for both. I totally know and understand why it’s the ‘best’ for baby but a big dark cloud lifted from over my head the day I forgave myself for not being able to ‘get it’ and I actually started to enjoy being a mum.

  6. Congratulations, and great joy, on the arrival of your new daughter.

    With my daughter (now a wonderful, healthy, sporty, bright 18 year old) I tried for three weeks to breast feed. She lost weight the whole time. The feed nurse kept telling me not to give up. Mastitis took hold, I had blood and antibiotics in my breast milk, I cried all the time, took two hours to feed and had an hours unconsciousness between each feed. My husband was still working and he began to unravel with me. One day, he went out, bought formula and bottles, sterilised everything, fed my gorgeous daughter as per the instructions on the tin and we all slept for 5 hours straight. Unbelievable.

    My best friend went through a similar event (we are both older mothers). She rang me up crying – she was so sick and unhappy and her baby was not thriving. She had had a difficult pregnancy and long, long birth, and, in her eyes, the nightmare was continuing. She said she felt so guilty that she couldn’t breast feed, but the feed nurse kept telling her she must keep trying. I told her to think about what priorities she wanted … to breast feed with all the benefits – regardless of herself; or to be so miserable about the most exciting event in her life that she was about to collapse. She chose the bottle and now has a gorgeous 11 year old.

    I am not trying to advocate bottle over breast; I just got the the stage that it was not working. Everyone was suffering. I was not cut out to be a martyr. Same with my friend. It is great if it works, but I was getting to the stage I just resented my daughters demands and my own unending misery. We were supposed to be a family, not single suffering entities.

    I hope everything improves for you Chantelle, and I wish the new mums and mums-to-be all the best over their wonderful parenting voyage with their happy healthy babes.

  7. LOL @ ” Ain’t nobody got enough milk for that!” Amen, sister! Breast feeding is NOT easy. At least it wasn’t for me, either times. Sometimes there is no amount of planning, prepping , preaching or teaching that can make it go smoothly. You do what you can with what you have and you muddle through it. ” It gets easier” was such a carrot and donkey trick for me . It kept me going but for me, like you, it never got easier. But it’s all worth it, no matter the length of time or struggle and you just do what you can!

    These biscuits look so delicious! Have they helped you? I drank that ” Mother’s Milk ” Tea ( again, not made of mother’s milk) and that did help my supply . Maybe even a little too much as I had a gugling, sputtering baby after my third day.
    Hang in there, mama!
    Missy

  8. Oh man, the whole breastfeeding gig is HARD. And PAINFUL. And nobody really talks about it when you are pregnant.

    I had the opposite problem to a lot of people and had a huge oversupply of milk. I could feel at least three letdowns in every feed, and was literally spurting milk everywhere. A lactation consultant told me that for my poor son, it was like trying to sip from a firehose. He was super gassy and had really runny poos because he was struggling to get enough hind milk as it was just squirting all over his face. Even nine months after he was born, I was still leaking through breast pads constantly and could write my name in milk on the walls of the shower.

    Best of luck with your gorgeous girl, Chantelle xxx

  9. Oh yum, I might have to make some up!

    I’m sorry to hear so many sad breastfeeding stories in the comments, and that things aren’t going easy for you. I have to say that breastfeeding Lior was my joy, and certainly we never had any great difficulty in the actual act of breastfeeding! I guess in that sense it was easy – just put him on and away he went!

    I did have to cut out all dairy the entire time I breastfed him, which was 16 months, but it was well worth in I think. 🙂

  10. I didn’t find breastfeeding easy, it was hard work, I curled my toes and cried with pain as my baby further lacerated my poor lacerated nipples. But we made it to a long and happy breastfeeding relationship through grim determination. Good luck and I hope it gets easier real soon and congrats on your new baby. Here is a link my to Breastfeeding Bikkie recipe

    http://www.ecobabe.com.au/g/1133746/breastfeeding-biscuit-recipe.html

    The Bikkies are filled with ‘galactagogues’ which help to build supply. Please note brewers yeast is not baking yeast, and can be bought in powdered form, don’t confuse it with those satchets of Dry Baker’s Yeast. All the extra ingredients can be bought from a supermarket with a good health food section or a good health food store of course. Good luck and best wishes

  11. My daughter & I struggled so much with breastfeeding. She had trouble from day one. I had no idea that babies didn’t come with that feeding instinct; that they had to be “taught”. Unfortunately, my daughter is extremely impatient and that didn’t help matters. I cried so much (as did she!) We went to a lactation consultant every week to try to get her to latch right. She never was fully breast fed. I supplemented with formula, and she turned out alright! I fed her what I could & tried to pump, but never made that much milk. I think I’d like to try again with another baby, hopefully we will get the hang of it.

    My sister on the other hand, has no problem (frustrating for me!!) And I think that she will really like these cookies.Thanks for the recipe! 🙂

  12. I’m a momma to one and a third (Baby No. 2 is due in March 2014). All through my first pregnancy, I was looking so much forward to breastfeeding. I’d seen both my sisters nurture their kids (5 between the 2 of them) and heard such wonderful stories from them about the benefits of breastfeeding and how it made them feel as mothers, and how easy and convenient it was to breastfeed rather than worry about all the icky things that come with bottle feeding. These loving tales made me want to ensure my son got the best from his mother, just like my nieces and nephews did from theirs.

    My sisters lied.

    It wasn’t easy – my son “ringbarked” me within the first 24 hours, on both nipples, and he was getting more blood than milk for the first week. My milk didn’t come in for a while, so while in hospital, the midwives had to “milk” me – firm hands in rubber gloves on already sore boobs is NOT a treat, and this was on top of trying to recover from an emergency C section. It wasn’t convenient. We found a lot of the parents rooms in shopping centres too filthy to even contemplate changing my son’s nappy, let alone plop down somewhere and feed him. And just whipping your boobs out in public isn’t as easy as it sounds – there are clothes and bras and nursing pads to contend with, and then there’s the wriggling baby who won’t latch on when you try to shield your modesty from the public. And my supply was low, low enough that the doctors had to put me on Motilium. And this was AFTER our rude and inconsiderate early childhood nurse all but accused me of starving my son on purpose.

    I eventually got the hang of it, and for a short time, both my son and I enjoyed the bonding time, but my supply completely dried up when my son was 6 months old. By this time, we had been supplementing his intake with formula (since 7 weeks old), and he had started solids at the age of 4 months. I was also pumping steady supplies for my husband to feed my son when I was too exhausted and passed out in the middle of the night to deal with the overnight feeds. (Yes, I have an awesome, amazing husband who to this day still tends to our son when he wakes in the middle of the night – very very lucky me.) We were to find out much later that he had a genetic disease that affected his growth and development, but that’s another story.

    I bailed my sisters up about their breastfeeding stories, and they eventually admitted to a number of things that they chose to keep to themselves – one sister suffered mastitis (recurrently), and the other found it so awful at times that she wanted to suffocate her child.

    Looking back, I’m glad I didn’t hear their horror stories. But I did learn a lesson – you do whatever works. My husband talked me into supplementing the breastfeeds with formula, and it worked a trick on our son. I’m looking forward to trying to breastfeed with Baby No. 2, but if he doesn’t / won’t take to the boob, I’m completely fine with feeding him formula. I was a formula baby as my mother couldn’t breastfeed, and I turned out just fine!

  13. I’ve been very lucky, my little man popped on straight away and fed with minimal fuss. I have struggled with mastitis though, even had two bouts in a week, while my husband was away with work of course!

    Hats off to any mama who manages it and an even bigger hats off to those who can’t. I couldn’t have coped with formula, a new bub and a C-section at the beginning.

  14. I’m with you Emma. Painful fire hoses here too. Poor baby gets abreast milk facial every time… Add to that tongue tie, very very damaged nipples, incredibly painful ‘let down’ and finally the usual sprinkling of mother guilt and its been a challenging three weeks…

    Trucking along. Making the muffins to keep up the supply! Maybe I’ll be able to express enough to donate to the hospital for those less fortunate in the supply department!

  15. What a great idea I fed my son with difficulty for 3 months and my daughter for 14 months easily but I fed her often and she never had a bottle or water and went straight on to a cup idk why the difference,good luck I hope you get to feed your bubba xx

  16. Both of my beautiful girls have been bottle fed. Miss 3 1/2 was bottle fed from about 3 weeks old, and our second little girl, who’s 2 1/2 months has been bottle fed from about 10 days old. I struggled so much with trying to successfully breast feed that it did nothing but stress me out which made it harder for me to concentrate and get it right. Of course, in turn, it meant that neither of them were getting what they needed and the relief i felt when deciding to bottle feed was huge. They are both so happy and healthy and despite being made to feel guilty about it by midwives/doctors/well meaning friends, I am so happy with the choice I made and my girls are happy too which is all that counts 🙂

  17. My doula gave me lactation cookies (recipe from belly belly I believe) as part of my birthing gift. I don’t know if they worked or not but they were delicious! It’s the brewers yeast that is believed to help milk supply, not oats, as mistakenly and commonly believed. I still breastfeed my 1 year old now. I struggled massively at the start but not because I lacked milk – I had way too much. Enough to make 101 batches of cookies for you using breast milk 😉 So much focus is on the mums who struggle with no milk but having too much is really just as hard and I tried to give it up but my little one would not take a bottle.

    14 months with Lacey is amazing, mumma! And however long you BF this little angel is amazing too, there is no amount of time that means you did well or didn’t, as any amount of breastmilk is good. Good work xx

    • I’ve found breastfeeding surprisingly easy. Now breastfeeding my third baby – 10,5 months old already – and I wish I didn’t have to use those bf-pads to hide the leaks 😀
      Never thought of baking cookies but I have been laughing that I could bf the village orphans, if necessary 🙂

  18. I had way too much milk too, and you’re right, it is pretty much an ignored problem. The midwives told me I was lucky to have an oversupply – um, giant swollen leaky boobs six months postpartum and a gassy baby is not lucky! If only our bodies did what we wanted 🙂

  19. Same here while new born son was in Special Care, day 3, I was filling two 250 ml bottles from each breat every two hours, while babe was being feed by nasal tube 15 ml every 2 hours. Go figure.
    Babe had issues feeding so expressed and fed him by bottle for 8 months with only expressing every night enough milk for the next day.

  20. Snap I am currently muching on one of these biscuits now. BF is bloody hard and no walk in the park. I had my first bubba 6 weeks ago and are still struggling so happyily munch on these a few times a day. Congrats on the birth of your wee girl too – she is supa cute (see pics on Instagram). Amanda xx

  21. i’m breastfeeding and topping up with formula. I’ve got the technique down but my a cups didn’t get any bigger than a cups. i’m aiming to keep it going till xmas. I’m on domperidone too and have made two batches of cookies. Breastfeeding is bloody hard work!

    http://traineemama.blogspot.com

  22. I usually just demand breast feed during the day which sometimes means I feel I’m glued to the couch. He almost always gets boob plus a bottle. About 5pm he gets a 60ml then about 8pm I give him a 90ml. He then usually sleeps till 1 or a bit later and gets another 60ml. If he wakes late enough (as in 4pm or after) ill just pull him into bed with me and let him breast feed but he usually falls asleep in my arms. If we are going out in the morning ill usually give him a 60ml bottle about half an hour before we leave and he is good for 3ish hours. There is a formula you can use – 150ml x the baby’s weight divided by the number of feeds per day.saying that though you can’t know how much baby is getting from
    Boob It is hard to estimate though but ultimately the baby seems to know when he has had enough. Ned is 5 weeks and 3 days old and last weight was 3.97kg

    • my post on low milk supply -http://traineemama.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/low-milk-supply.html

      I’ve got to admit it’s quite tiring. I’m aiming to get to the four month mark – early December.

    • I used to do this with my bub – top up with formula after most breast feeds – until a nurse from our Mother’s group suggested I do alternate feeds so I wouldn’t drive myself insane. I got into a routine then of alternating bottle & breast feeds & it made my days a lot easier 🙂

  23. I have a 7 week old baby girl…congrats to you on yours!! I also struggled with breastfeeding this time around (I have two older boys too who also b-fed). My milk was very slow coming in, and she lost a whole pound her first 2 weeks in the world. Her doc insisted I start supplementing to get her weight back on, so I did.
    The way we do it is this – offer breast whenever she shows a desire to eat (or whenever she fusses basically). This means I’m pretty much glued to the sofa, like a previous commenter mentioned, and it can be very draining, and frustrating at times because I do have two other children who need me to function as their mom too! I do the best I can. Then, I offered 2 oz. of formula 3 x a day, usually breakfast, lunch and dinner time. I always give her the bottle after I’ve already breastfed her, so that it doesn’t mess with my supply. Sometimes it’s best to do the bottles at the time of the day when your supply is naturally at its lowest – for most women I think that’s usually in the later afternoon, evening hours.
    She’s been thriving well now and my supply is sufficient (finally!) to stop the formula at this point, if I wanted to. Although, I still offer her a bottle in the evenings if it seems she’s still hungry after breastfeeding. Good luck to you!! I’m sure you’ll get into a groove before you know it. I love this muffin idea and I’m excited to try them! Thanks 🙂

  24. Oh dear! This soooo needs to be talked about more. I feel a bit robbed that no one prepared me for the hell that lay ahead when breastfeeding wasn’t working for me…..and didn’t work out (despite a huge effort on mine and bub’s part) for all three of my children.
    It is now the one thing that stands out as the ONLY thing I disliked about the early days with my bubs. (Feed lines, constant pumping, bleeding, Motillium to boost supply) I had a great desire to breastfeed. But poor attachment, bub’s low weight gain (like, really low), my low supply etc led to lots of (literally) blood, sweat and tears. All of this support for BF mum’s as there SHOULD be…but I felt there was no one answering my questions about other options when my baby was failing to thrive and gain weight. ( But do check out Mum’s forums) I wonder as I look back…..at what point would someone have said, “It’s time to look at supplementing.” So,,,,,oops, got a bit passionate there….I encourage others to release the guilt/pressure and do what will work FOR YOUR LITTLE FAMILY.
    I felt a lot of pressure to keep going and the second I stopped/complimented, my happy experience of bonding / looking forward to feeds/ eye contact/skin to skin contact etc began. I am very pro breastfeeding and would have loved to have been able to….but it is essential mum’s know that you will not be burnt at the stake if you choose something different. Hat’s off to all the feeding mum’s out there. I love the idea of the biscuits!

  25. I was really lucky. Before I’d had babies I’d worked in midwifery research, so I already knew lots about breastfeeding and where to get help. I fed each of my three children until they were about two. If I felt I wasn’t making enough milk I’d feed baby on both sides and then do it again. That would stimulate milk supply. I didn’t top up with formula because that would have reduced my supply, and I didn’t have to. I hope you get the support you need to feed your baby and to take care of yourself and your family. You must be tired out. Wish I could fetch you a nice cup of tea.

  26. It has been ages and ages since I had someone to breastfeed but I’m chiming in here because I’m about to be a grandma for the first time. Like so many of you, I was determined to BF our first. He was enthusiastic and I had bleeding nipples by the end of the first week. What worked for me was to spend part of the day with my nursing bra’s flaps down so that my nips got a bit of a rub on my shirt, and I spent a few minutes a day exposing them to the sun either with a sunlamp or in a shaded part of the yard. It was a wonder. That was after stuffing my cups with the tops of tea strainers to keep my bleeding nipples from sticking to the pads. And he had horrible colic, HORRIBLE colic, until a wise older woman advised me to stop drinking milk. I did and within 24 hours he was fine. Turns out he was lactose intolerant. But once all the kinks were ironed out breastfeeding went fine. I supplemented a bit of formula with the first and he nursed for just over 2 years and his sister didn’t need any formula, wouldn’t take it even, and she nursed until the older one told me, “Mama, you have big boobs.” When I asked how he knew he said that the neighbor boys told him so evidently I was a little too casual feeding at coffee with the neighbors, so that’s when I weaned her. I miss those tender feeding moments and they come with breast or bottle feeding. Love is love, food is food no matter how you give it. One is not better than the other, and you’re not a failure if you don’t or can’t breastfeed.
    Sorry to be long-winded.

    • Thanks for sharing your story. I’ve just this week had to stop dairy too, so I hope I get some good results. I’ve put Luella on Goats Milk formula {I breastfeed and supplement} so I am dearly hoping this makes a difference and she’s more settled.

  27. I made these for my friend last week who just had a baby, but I did mine with white chocolate and macadamias…. yummy!

  28. My MHN wanted to photograph my nipple as apparently it was the most damaged she’d seen in 30 yrs of nursing & she couldn’t believe I was still feeding from it {what a claim to fame! I politely declined the photo op 😛 }
    I had to supplement with formula too – although in my case that was probably as a result of a breast reduction.
    I think how difficult {& painful} breastfeeding can be is one of the biggest shocks you face as a new Mum.

  29. I had a hell of a time feeding my son. He had an undiagnosed tongue tie (which didn’t get picked up and corrected till he was 16 weeks) so there was plenty of pain, tears and a whole lot of ‘WHY ISN’T THIS WORKING?’ I persisted and when his tie was cut things got a little better but it was still never ‘perfect’. He weaned himself at 7 months and I was shattered though it was probably for the best as the whole debacle had really taken a toll on my physical and mental health. I’m hoping for a better experience next time! As for the ‘boobie biccies’ as I always like to call them, I always make them for my new mama friends. Supply was one thing I didn’t have an issue with but for those new mama’s that do, they seem to work a treat! And it’s always nice to have something to nibble on during the hours (and hours) you’re feeding!

  30. I tried this recipe. They did not taste good and turned into little cakes 🙁 must not have done it right.

  31. They tasted great! Though, full disclosure, I added a few things… 1/4 cup of coconut, 1/4 cup of almonds, 2 tbsps of chia seeds, 1/2 cup of almond milk and added 1 more tbsp of brewers yeast which is the golden ingredient for milk production. Overall sweetness was good, not too sweet and enjoyable to eat at all hours… now to measure milk supply! Thank you!

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